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ParentingForEveryone.com

ParentingForEveryone.com

Parenting - The Difference Between Discipline and Punishment (Part 1)

Comparing discipline and punishment in parenting is like comparing an apple with an orange, or more precisely, an apple tree with an orange.

By discipline most parents assume something positive. We can say "well-disciplined child" with approval, whereas we can't say "well-punished child." The latter doesn't sound right, it sounds too negative. Parents want the child to be disciplined, but not punished. However, discipline involves punishment. So parents have to accept that some sort of punishment is necessary in the process of the child's healthy moral development, some sort of good punishment. The rest of punishment is assumed to be bad. What is this sort of good punishment?

Many experts call it "consequences." For example, when a child is late for dinner, he or she has to eat cold food, or doesn't eat at all, because the parents chose not to feed the child, hoping to teach a lesson. This is a consequence of being late for dinner. Even if it is called a consequence, it is still punishment: it hurts, it is unpleasant to be hungry. The goal of this punishment is to make a child fear being late again. As as result, if the procedure is consistent enough, the child is learning "discipline."

We would like to make an important note here. Very often, such process of disciplining a child is like training a pet. Parents "give" consequences (read - punishment) to the child for an undesirable behavior, (and reward for good behavior). Because children are not pets, instead of desirable fear of consequences, that parents expect, the children feel anger toward their parents for being heartless and unintelligent.

The real consequence (punishment) that "teaches" doesn't come from the parents. It comes from anything or anyone else, but parents. It comes from the demands of other people, from life. For example, if a family has plans to go to the movie after dinner, and a child is late for dinner, he or she would not have a chance to eat in time, they all rush to the movie and the child is hungry - that is the real lesson! That hurts too, hunger is unpleasant, and that punishes the child very well. The parents role here is to feel compassion to the child.

to be continued...

People Are Good - The Secret of Good Parents (Part 2)

Good parents believe that people are good. What do they mean by good? What exactly do good parents look for in people?

Good people means kind and honest people. When parents want to raise good children they mean kind and honest children. Why exactly these two words? Some people list values as: appreciating, grateful, caring, compassionate, courteous, forgiving, listening, loving, patient, sacrificing, tolerant, peaceful, humble, committed, respectful, intelligent, fair, and just. Each of these words has some relation to kind and honest, in one way or another these words describe a person as the person is either kind or honest.

For example, people are caring and compassionate because they are kind and can imagine another person's feelings and pain. People listen to others because they are kind enough to be attentive to another person's needs. People are grateful for the goodness, which comes from someone in their lives, and they are kind because they know that goodness. People are fair because they evaluate situations honestly and see justice; they are tolerant because they approach other people honestly as equal; they are committed because they are honest to the words they give; intelligent - because they know the difference between honesty and dishonesty, between good and bad.

The list of qualities, which people use to describe what they mean by good can be endless. However there are only two groups, kindness (or love), which is a function of people's hearts, and honesty (or conscience), which is a function of people's intelligence, the ability to discern between good and bad.

The reason these old-fashioned qualities are not popular in conventional parenting vocabulary is that they require parents to have those qualities themselves. Here is the complete secret of good parents: they themselves are kind and honest, and they raise great children. They don't consider kindness and honesty as a human weakness. They believe in love and conscience.

People Are Good - The Secret of Good Parents (Part 1)

The secret of good parents is that they believe that people are good. When they talk or think of other people they look for good rather than for bad. It is not that they just don't blame others for anything, they actually find something to admire in others, including their spouses, children, neighbours, relatives etc. That is what children sense and pick up from such parents. Those children grow to be caring and fair to other people, including their own siblings and parents. Children of good parents become a joy for their parents.

Many parents crave for the same result in parenting but they don't know this secret. Instead, they focus on the child, exclusively. What is wrong with my child? Why is my child mean to her brother, and other children in school? Why is my child rude to me, ignoring my requests, talking back? There must be a "fix" to this problem, help!

Those parents have good intentions, too. But they notice their children mostly when the children get in trouble. Unfortunately, parents pay attention not to children, but to the problem, which children cause. Sadly, parents look for answers in the wrong place; they react to the children's behavior by complaining about children. Usually, for them, children are heartless, dishonest, rude, careless, mean, hurtful, bossy, threatening, hitting, lying, disrespectful, sneaky, selfish, stubborn, unpleasant, shameless, indifferent, etc.). It's all about the child not being ok in their parents' mind.

Looking in the wrong place, parents are driven by fear of children's problems, fear of children. It is because they don't believe that people are good, in general, and they also don't believe that their children are good. Simon Soloveychik in Parenting For Everyone wrote, "We don't believe in children not because they are bad, but they become bad because we don't believe in them." Thus, the problem of children's behavior becomes a problem of parental faith.

Audacity of Children's Hope - If Children Had the Words

We all seem to know what children need. We know what children want. But what do children hope for?

If only children had the words! They would be able to express what is inside their souls: the deepest, very human, set of ideals, which each child hopes for. Even adults struggle to find the right words. It is because language in modern society uses different words, substitutes of what has been forgotten, or brainwashed away. Barack Obama in his book The Audacity of Hope wrote that "we don't even seem to possess a shared language with which to discuss our ideals." However, "we have no choice," but to share our ideals and values, to find this language, with which we raise hopeful children.

For example, everyone seems to be in favor of the word discipline. Parents are concerned about how to raise well-disciplined children. They read about the role of discipline in upbringing. But is discipline the right word? Hitler too was in favor of "discipline from his boys," according to Rudolf Hess, The Oath to Adolf Hitler. What the former dictator wanted was blind discipline and obedience. Sometimes parents too want their children simply to obey, and they call it discipline. But, maybe what good parents really mean is internal discipline, or a sense of responsibility, or even better yet, internal freedom!

In another example when describing a good parent, many use the word caring. Good parents behave to fit this quality, they care of children. But how about the word magnanimity? One can pretend that she is caring, but she cannot pretend that she is magnanimous.

Or, one can pretend that she worries about her child's self esteem, but she cannot pretend that she worries about the child's dignity. For the latter, she must know dignity herself, know what this word refers to, not just recall it when it comes to old age or death. But, does she really know?

There is something authentic, sacred, lofty in those words. Every time people mention ideals they tend to apologize or cautiously use lofty words. Barack Obama in his book recognized "the risks" of using lofty words when he described the necessity of political changes. In families, like in society, there is a necessity to change too. Simon Soloveychik in Parenting For Everyone wrote, "In lofty words there might be a lie. But without them parenting inevitably becomes a lie." So, we too have no choice. Like Soloveychik, we have to say, "forgive me, lofty words," we have to use you, because we want to know what children hope for.

What are those lofty words? Maybe there will be less need for political changes if parents' minds start to change. A family is one little cell of a nation: parents are government, and children are citizens. What do little citizens hope for? They hope for goodness and justice in their families. They hope that people around them are kind and honest. They hope that parents care about each other's dignity and dignity of other people, including dignity of their children. They hope that in building relationships with children and between each other, parents are led by conscience. They hope that mothers are magnanimous, and fathers are conscientious. They hope that mothers and fathers have faith in children's goodness. They hope for goodness and truth in the world. Do children hope for too much?

More on dignity: http://www.ParentingForEveryone.com/dignity

Have Responsibility - Seven Stages of Self-Liberation

There are seven stages of self-liberation on the road from birth to death. Each stage represents a change in freedom available to people. Simultaneously, there is an invisible change in acquired responsibilities.

1st stage. At birth a new born liberates himself, with pain and a cry, from his mother's womb to the world. What freedom! Yet, no responsibility whatsoever. Mother and other caregivers around are fully responsible for baby. It is freedom with full supervision.

2nd stage. Baby starts walking. Struggling with gravity and learning to maneuver a little body he liberates himself for freedom to move. His mother is still responsible for his life and safety. But from now on if he falls to the ground he would know that he did it himself, not that the ground jumped up and hit him. With the first steps comes the first realisation that he needs to rely on himself.

3rd stage. A child goes outside. The yard and street have so much to offer! Yet, there are also dangers. The child is learning to recognise what is what, with supervision of mother. With age and experience supervision lessens, and responsibility of the child increases. It is a stage of half freedom and half supervision.

4th stage. A child goes to school! There is less and less supervision from mother, more and more responsibility is put on the child. Perhaps it takes a decade for the child to become fully prepared for independence.

5th stage. It is an invisible stage happening in the mind of the growing child. Nature offers the ability to give birth to another human being. It is a higher level of freedom, which one didn't have before. Yet it is a great responsibility. The efforts of the growing child in realising this responsibility is self-liberation from ignorance to knowledge. If this process doesn't happen internally (in the mind), the lesson of responsibility may be very painful.

6th stage. A child is grown up and starts his own life. No supervision, full external freedom. Everything now depends on how much the grown up has developed internal freedom. Ideally, the grown up child must be completely financially independent from parents; and hopefully continue fully attached to the parents by his soul.

7th stage. Death. Full freedom from responsibility.

There are different stages of human development. We described Simon Soloveychik's unique view on this process, which he calls self-liberation. In fact, people are doing this every day. They liberate themselves from problems by solving them. So do children in their lives. They are going about their day to day routines overcoming their helplessness, to become empowered, moving from dependence to independence. In this way they are learning to be responsible.

Have Responsibility - Through Self-Liberation

In order to raise responsible children parents give them freedom, hoping that "with freedom comes responsibility" (Eleanor Roosevelt). That is true with one important clarification. "Freedom that leads to responsibility is not given or granted; it is obtained by internal efforts. A child develops not by freedom itself, as some people think, but by the child's own actions to obtain freedom, by the child's self-liberation" (Simon Soloveychik).

The confusion in perception of freedom is hidden in its external and internal character. Parents widespread perception of freedom is usually an external freedom: freedom to move, to play, and to have a variety of choices. Those parents, who can afford, usually provide more space and toys to children with the hope that children naturally develop themselves. But children may not be able to handle freedom. Often they go wild and run out of control: they scream, they hit each other, they bother each other, or they hurt themselves. As a result parents limit children's freedom, for example by taking toys away, or by giving a time out. In other words, parents use the external freedom of children as a reward and punishment tool, by either giving freedom to children or taking it away.

Often, when freedom is taken away, children become rebellious. They strive to liberate themselves from their parents' petty prohibitions, and often the children's strength is exhausted in this fight. By the time they have a chance to be free from parents (become adolescents), they exchange their freedom for dependence on their peers. When grown up such people don't know responsibility, because their decisions were made for them by other people. Thus, external freedom given by parents has no direct relation to raising responsibility in children.

Internal freedom has a different character. It can not be given or taken away. Children don't necessarily need too many choices. They need one activity at a time, with a purpose, with meaning; it must be challenging, and simultaneously, it must be doable. Children learn from their own efforts while exploring something new. This internal discovery from "I didn't know" to "Now I know!" brings deep satisfaction to children, as it would bring to adults, is a self-liberating process. From being helpless - to being skillful: this is the process of self liberation which leads to internal freedom. Parents cannot take this freedom away from children. Nobody can. When children become teenagers and know internal freedom, they liberate themselves from limitations of life, from weaknesses of character, from cowardice, and from social injustice. They are not dependent on peer pressure. They make their own decisions and are responsible for those decisions.

Only with self-liberation comes responsibility. Only with internal freedom comes responsibility.

Have Responsibility - What Does It Mean? (Part 3)

"Independent means being free, or more precisely, being internally free," says Simon Soloveychik in his book Parenting For Everyone. By freedom people assume freedom of choices. Internal freedom assumes full responsibility for those choices. Therefore a free man is a completely responsible man. How do irresponsible children grow up to be responsible people?

Apparently, "freedom of a man is determined by the source of punishment for his mistakes" (S.Soloveychik). If we punish children for their wrong choices we take responsibility ourselves. We are being responsible, not the children. When we scold, blame, shame, or rebuke a child for his or her mistakes we punish the child. The source of punishment comes from us, from outside the child. So, the child doesn't learn responsibility. All the child learns is that we don't love him or her and that he or she is supposed to be guilty. Therefore, children grow not free, afraid of people, afraid of life, and they are afraid of freedom. Only when the source of punishment comes from inside the child (internally), when the child feels hurt from doing wrong, he learns responsibility. Only then he becomes internally free.

Why does it need to be so complicated? Why do we even talk about responsibility? Sometimes it is more convenient to raise a child who is obedient and controllable. Let's admit it: sometimes we don't want our children to be free! But do we want our children to be happy? In the movie Pursuit of Happiness the main character, Chris Gardner portrayed by Will Smith, represents a free man. He doesn't complain, he doesn't blame, he is fully responsible, and he feels equal to other people. He is in search of solutions, in pursuit of his happiness. Will Smith's character calls for our admiration. Do we want our children to grow up to be people who are worth admiring? Then we need to learn how to raise them to be internally free.

Have Responsibility - What Does It Mean? (Part 2)

To have responsibility means to be able to respond, to answer why someone did what he did. Who does the person have to respond to? Sometimes he has to admit that he did wrong publicly. Sometimes he apologizes to a person he hurt privately. But very often he doesn't have anybody to speak to, but himself. He admits to himself that he doesn't want to repeat what he did wrong. That is what is most important. That is how people become responsible. They learn to do right and avoid doing wrong because doing wrong hurts! In human language this internal responsiveness is called conscientiousness. A developed intelligence to discern between right and wrong is called conscience.

Only when children learn about how doing wrong hurts inside they develop their own internal system of judgment. They start to strive to do good and avoid doing bad things, in other words, they become intelligent. They don't need outside approval or disapproval because they already know what is good and what is bad. So they become independent from approval and from any judgment. They become free. They are not afraid of people's judgment, they are not afraid of people. They acquire internal strength of character, which brings courage to admit willingly that they did something wrong, a quality, which not many adults have.

Another misconception of parents is when they think that they teach responsibility by setting boundaries or limits on children. The parents' boundaries only irritate children and teach them to ignore their parents' efforts, or to play a game called power struggle. The real boundaries arise inside a child, in his conscientiousness, in his developed intelligence and heart.

Have Responsibility - What Does It Mean? (Part1)

Responsibility is one of the top qualities parents want their chidlren to have when children grow up. To be responsible literally means to be able to respond, to answer why someone did what he did. If the action is wrong, the answer is not easy. It requires courage to admit that someone was wrong, and it requires intelligence to discern between right and wrong, and it requires desire to learn from the lesson and not do the same thing again.

When it comes to teaching children responsibility parents are confused in many ways. They think their duty is to explain to children why particular actions are wrong, which assumingly develops children's intelligence. They also try to be friendly so that children won't fear punishment for their misbehavior. Instead of harsh punishment parents would use a punishment of a soft sort. For example, if a boy took a toy from his sister and she started crying, his parents will explain why his behavior was bad and hurt his sister; therefore he must have a time out. Will the boy become responsible and not hurt his sister again because of the explanation and the time out?

Intelligence to discern between right and wrong doesn't come to a child from explanations. The child must have a willingness to act in the right way and to avoid temptations. This willingness doesn't come because of words; it comes because of feelings. In the example above if the boy could feel his sister's pain, he would not be able to hurt her next time. The ability to feel for another person, or imagine another person's pain, is the quality of a developed heart. Do parents think about developing children's feelings when they think of teaching responsibility?

Commentary to Parenting For Everyone, Book 1 Part1 chapter 9

Parents' Project - From Ideal Child to Ideal Man (Part2)

Parents underestimate the importance of the fact that there are two images in their minds when they bring up children: an image of a child, an ideal child, and an image of a grown up, an ideal man, whom their child would hopefully become. Most disappointments in parenting come from a mismatch between reality and the ideal. When children are small parents think for them and tell them what to do. Parents expect children to be dependent. When children become adults and live in society, parents expect them to think for themselves and not wait until other people tell them what to do. In other words, parents expect them to be independent.

Here they are - our children. Still boys and girls, striving to be independent. They are loud, when we want quiet, and quiet when we want them to be assertive; they are unskilled, clumsy, messy, in one word - imperfect. Do we need to mold them to be perfect children to fit our ideal images? What if, in our way, we accidentally push down their spirits and hold back their striving for independence? Or, do we rather hold back our teaching passion and let them make their mistakes, which hopefully they out grow by the time they are adults?

The solution is inevitable. Our image of the ideal child stops being ideal, in terms of being "perfect." We see our real child and he is far from perfect. But we say, "Perfect! This is how a child is supposed to be." Now what? Now it is time to ponder on the image of an ideal man. How does independence develop in a man? Do we need to give a child freedom? What is this freedom about? Is it freedom to do anything, say anything, scream anything? "There must be boundaries, limits," ague many parenting experts. But why do some children feel free even in a corner of a room, and some children go wild in a huge house and still feel dependent? Maybe it is time to make clear what we know about boundaries, independence, responsibility, and freedom. The result of a parenting project completely depends on the clarity of these concepts.

As any project starts in the mind of its planner, upbringing of children starts in the mind of parents. The clearer understanding, the greater the result will be on the road from ideal child to ideal man.